January 27, 2014

If you thought that all the Polar Vortex brought was wind and snow, you were wrong. I learned today that it also brought a blizzard of funny quotes. Today was our first day back after an unexpected 9 day weekend and I guess these kids have been holding their hilarity in while they've been at home or something.

I was back at my car duty this morning, opening doors for our students...

4th Grade Girl: It's actually not that cold out.
Me: Well I've been standing out here for quite some time so I'm going to go ahead and disagree with you.

Overheard during reading recovery, an excuse for why a third grade boy didn't read over the break...

Boy: I had basketball for 7 hours a day, every day.
Teacher: Well you still should have read.
Me: But his arms were probably tired from all the dribbling.

I'm beginning to teach my students about Spanish artists, first and second grade has started learning about Salvador Dalí. Our first activity was to read a book from a series called Getting to Know the World's Greatest Artists. It created some interesting conversations in my first grade classes...

Girl: My mom has that picture in her bedroom.
Me: That's cool!
[A few minutes later, she puts her hand over her mouth and throws her other hand in the air and starts waving it around like crazy]
Me: Yes?
Girl: I think that guy, what's his name?
Me: Salvador Dalí
Girl: Yea, him. I think he lived in my house. My friend said that a famous person lived there and that he buried gold in the front yard. [She grew increasingly more excited as she was speaking]
Me: Well, I'm pretty sure he was never in Kentucky but I'll look into it. I'll do some research to see if Salvador Dalí ever lived in Lexington, Kentucky and buried gold in someone's front yard.
Girl: I have to tell my mom and dad!

My next first grade class was more focused on Dalí being from Spain and the fact that I lived in Spain for awhile, so we began chatting about Spain. There were a lot of contributors, so I'm listing them all as "kid"...

Kid: How did you get to Spain?
Me: I flew there, on a plane.
Kid: You can also take a train.
Me: No, not really. There's kind of an ocean.
Kid: Or a subway.
Me: Um, nooo. Again, the Atlantic Ocean.
Kid: You could take a boat.
Me: You could but a plane is a lot faster.
Kid: You could swim, like this. [And then he did the arm motions of swimming, in case I was unfamiliar]
Me: Swimming across the Atlantic Ocean...Good luck with that.
Kid: This one guy did it.
Me: I wish I could stay here all day because this is getting hilariously intriguing.

Boy: Miss Black, can I see that one picture?
Me: Which one?
Boy: The one that looks like a T-Rex?
Me: I have no idea which one that is. [And that's the trouble with surrealism, right?]

I've been teaching my kindergarten classes "The Sapo Song". It's a song about a toad, I learned it on a mission trip to Honduras in 2012. 

Me: This song is about a toad. Who can raise their hand and tell me what a toad is?
Girl 1: Something gross!
Me: Well, ok. More specific.
Boy: A giant!
Me: No.
Girl 2: It's like a frog.
Me: Yes, a toad is very similar to a frog.
Girl 3: But slimier.
Me: I'm not sure about that.

I also told my kindergarten classes that next class we would start learning about a famous Spanish artist named Pablo Picasso...

Girl: I know him. I saw him on TV.
Me: Well that's impressive because he's dead.

Here's one another teacher heard the other day and I forgot to put on here...

Third Grade Boy: I bring home diseases to my family all the time but I never get them. That is pretty amazing because you would think someone who looked like me would get the diseases.

On another note, a co-worker mentioned to me that she and another co-worker were discussing the idea of me being the moderator for our district Facebook page because it would be hilarious. I laughed because I can't imagine that would be my job very long! I may have mentioned before that one of my favorite activities (especially when it becomes Snow Day Season) is to see the things that people post on the page. You can never make everyone happy (why are we in school today?!/why did we call off today?!/everyone is stupid!) I don't think I could tactfully moderate the page. Mostly it would be me responding with smart ass comments and memes.